{"id":21186,"date":"2019-02-01T08:21:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T16:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=21186"},"modified":"2019-02-01T08:21:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T16:21:13","slug":"put-in-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/put-in-check\/","title":{"rendered":"Put In Check"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve got to admit, after struggling to connect with last week\u2019s theology based book examining evangelicalism, I was pretty excited to dig into Erin Meyer\u2019s book, <em>The Culture Map<\/em>. And it did not disappoint\u2026Meyer\u2019s book is relevant, pragmatic, and based on years of study and experience.\u00a0 It is directly connected to global leadership and the impact of culture in all personal, business, and team interactions.\u00a0 I think my biggest disappointment is that I did not know about this gem of a resource until this semester.\u00a0 I\u2019m working on a Track 02 dissertation &#8211; developing an artifact which will be an evidenced based, outcome driven, resilience factor assessment tool (Likert scale) &#8211; and administered to refugees quarterly in their first year of resettlement in Columbus, Ohio.\u00a0 After familiarizing myself with Meyer\u2019s work, I\u2019m hopeful <em>The Culture Map <\/em>will influence and enhance the development of my tool. The core of Meyer\u2019s work is about understanding and assessing culture, specific to eight \u201cscales\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><em>Meyer\u2019s claims you can improve relationships by considering where you and international partners fall on each of these scales:<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\"><sup><strong>[1]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Communicating: explicit vs. implicit<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Evaluating: direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Persuading: deductive vs. inductive<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Deciding: consensual vs. top down<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Trusting: task vs. relationship<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoid confrontation<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Scheduling: structured vs. flexible<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And while this book is written specifically for international business relations, I plan to apply the same cultural lens to refugee relationships in their new community of resettlement, all the while looking at how these eight scales impact their <u>capacity<\/u> for resilience and their resilience <u>outcome(s)<\/u>.\u00a0 It will be essential to evaluate existing programs and resources (based on the eight scales) developed specifically for Somali refugees in Columbus, Ohio.\u00a0 Are these factors even considered?\u00a0 Are the existing programs and resources culturally appropriate? My research problem states \u201cResearch indicates policies, resources, cultural attitudes and biases contribute to Somalian refugees struggle with resettlement in Columbus, Ohio.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps these scales are my missing link to creating a tool that meets Erin Meyer\u2019s standard of cultural relativity!<\/p>\n<p>Even though I was willing to purchase the <em>Erin Meyer Personal Bundle<\/em> to map out Somali culture, it wasn\u2019t an option since it isn\u2019t available on the \u201cthe list\u201d.\u00a0 There are some African nations \u2013 Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe \u2013 included in the bundle, but Somalia, unfortunately, is not.\u00a0 If I were to take an educated guess on which of these countries most resembles the culture of Somalia, I would earmark Kenya.\u00a0 (@Dave Watermulder, prior Peace Corp resident of Kenya, feel free to correct me if I\u2019m completely off base) It is geographically a neighbor, (as is Ethiopia), and has similar demographics (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indexmundi.com\/factbook\/compare\/somalia.kenya\">https:\/\/www.indexmundi.com\/factbook\/compare\/somalia.kenya<\/a>).\u00a0 Kenya, unlike Ethiopia, has been a military support to Somalia.\u00a0 In fact the two countries have \u201cagreed to cooperate on security, trade, tourism and immigration.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>\u00a0 And as I watched videos of Meyer\u2019s presentations and how Kenya was culturally mapped, I was not surprised at the disparity between American culture and Kenyan culture (as also applied to Somali culture).<\/p>\n<p>In the United States, an estimated 45,000 Somalis currently live in Columbus, Ohio\u2026second only in number to the greater Minneapolis area. Culturally, Somalis are \u201ctraditionally nomadic\u201d and after word spread back to Somalia of the Minneapolis region, the community flourished.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>\u00a0 The same phenomenon was duplicated in Columbus, Ohio \u201cthe young vibe and energy of progress and growth are intoxicating,\u201d notes \u201cSomaliWarlord\u201d on\u00a0a Reddit thread\u00a0about his life here. \u201cOh and The Bucks!\u201d \u00a0(Even the Somali\u2019s love The OSU Bucks!!!) But researchers have also found a\u00a0high risk of depression and stress among Somali immigrants in Columbus, especially in adolescents who are trying to forge their identity amid two vastly different cultures.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>\u00a0 This finding connected to refugee depression and its link to identity and resettlement is the focus of my research (resilience).<\/p>\n<p>So what \u201cculture\u201d and \u201cexperiences\u201d do Somali\u2019s arrive in Columbus with?\u00a0 Here\u2019s a snapshot:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><em>The Somali story is one of hardship, pain and sacrifice. And it is about duty, ethics, and morality. As my friend, Mama Fadumo, told me one day, \u201cWe are Somalis. We don\u2019t expect comfort anymore. We expect hardship and struggle. And we survive.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\"><strong>[5]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Somali narrative is starkly different from the American narrative.\u00a0 Somali\u2019s who resettle in the United States have well-documented adverse experiences spanning from violence (torture, rape, death of loved ones), starvation and poverty, to racial\/ethnic discrimination. Somali\u2019s are 99.8% Muslim (majority Sunni)<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\"><sup>[6]<\/sup><\/a> who practice Islam \u2013 which has a \u201cmuch more comprehensive role in life than is typical in the America\u2019s or Europe.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a> As an example of cultural challenges, the following examples of cultural differences are identified by CRIS on their website:\u00a0 \u201cIn Somalia, extended families live together and parents always have family to take care of their children. \u00a0In the U.S., it is hard for parents to adjust to paying for daycare. Using the right hand to shake hands is considered polite. Somali women usually cover their entire bodies and sometimes wear veils.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a> When examining the trauma history, cultural differences, and faith practices of Somali refugees, it\u2019s not surprising that resettlement into the United States presents challenges.<\/p>\n<p>An additional barrier to refugee resilience is the attitudes of service providers. Research indicates that most service providers hold deep-seated prejudices against migrants. These prejudices appear when such individuals behave as though \u201cthey know better what the family needs than the family itself knows\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a> In two field research interviews of refugee providers, a bias of Somali culture was noted. An educator in Columbus believes \u201cthey [Somali refugees] don\u2019t try to fit in to the community at all\u201d, subsequently creating community barriers of acceptance. This educator further expounded that the struggles the Central Ohio Somalians experienced in Columbus City Schools was due to their unwillingness to assimilate. \u201cMuslim rituals, such as prayer five times daily, became problematic in the school system\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\"><sup>[10]<\/sup><\/a> This same belief was reiterated by a program coordinator of refugee services\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I could go on and on about biases, but I believe this to be true \u2013 there is still a lot of work to be done [for helping professionals] in the construct of cultural relativity.\u00a0 Perhaps Erin Meyer\u2019s text, <em>The Culture Map, <\/em>is an excellent place to start \u2013 looking at factors of relationship and communication in how programs and resources are developed for Somali refugees in Columbus.\u00a0 And that is a paradigm I plan to build my artifact around.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been put in check.\u00a0 Have you?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/the-culture-map-8-scales-for-work-2015-1<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kenya%E2%80%93Somalia_relations<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> https:\/\/beltmag.com\/in-columbus-somalis-live-under-suspicion\/<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> https:\/\/beltmag.com\/in-columbus-somalis-live-under-suspicion\/<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a>https:\/\/openscholarship.wustl.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https:\/\/www.google.com\/&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1591&amp;context=etd<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> globalreligiousfutures.org<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> https:\/\/ethnomed.org\/culture\/somali\/somali-cultural-profile<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> http:\/\/www.crisohio.org\/somali\/<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Park, Yoosun, et al. &#8220;U.S. Social Work Practitioners\u2019 Attitudes Towards Immigrants and Immigration: Results From an Online Survey.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal Of Immigrant &amp; Refugee Studies<\/em>\u00a09, no. 4 (October 2011): 367-392.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> *Name withheld for privacy \u2013 anonymous interview with Jean Ollis, April 19, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve got to admit, after struggling to connect with last week\u2019s theology based book examining evangelicalism, I was pretty excited to dig into Erin Meyer\u2019s book, The Culture Map. And it did not disappoint\u2026Meyer\u2019s book is relevant, pragmatic, and based on years of study and experience.\u00a0 It is directly connected to global leadership and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":21188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1429],"class_list":["post-21186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-meyer","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21189,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21186\/revisions\/21189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}